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The Audiocast Diaries: Reflections on radio and podcasting for delivery of educational soap operas

2006; Athabasca University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.19173/irrodl.v7i3.370

1492-3831

Wendy Elliott,

Innovations in Educational Methods

While studying Gender Issues in Distance Education at Athabasca University, I read about the nomadic Fulbe women in Nigeria who learned by radio.I could understand their concerns with uninspired educational radio programs that did "not take into consideration the rhythm of . . .[their] lives" (Usman, 2001, p. 98).There was one tiny reference to a drama series, but as a scriptwriter and a woman interested in the power of storytelling as education, I was intrigued.The idea of serial drama as education was planted in my mind.September 15, 2005: Determined to take my remaining two electives of the Master of Distance Education (MDE) program as independent study courses, I began searching the Internet for ideas.Eventually I discovered the concept of entertainment-education which consists of "two equally important parts: the format (entertainment) and the message (education)" (Johns Hopkins, 1998, p. 7).One striking example of entertainment-education is an educational soap opera called "Urunana."After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, over 70 percent of the remaining population was under 24 years of age.Because most of Rwanda's health staff had either been killed or had fled, there was no one left to provide "specific information on sexual and reproductive health . . .[so] vital to the health of the nation" (Booth, 2003, ¶ 1).The circumstances were shocking, but the solution -Urunana delivered via radio -was fascinating.I began collecting information on educational soap operas -serial dramas whose purpose is education or social transformation.They were mostly played in developing countries, and mostly played on the radio.October 10, 2005: I was alerted by a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed from one of my favourite websites, I Love Radio, that Internet audio had overtaken radio as the music preference for young people (Maffin, 2005)."They will pick, swap, mix, rip, burn, podcast, mod, and mashup their media . . . to present them with a personalized view of the world" ( ¶ 2).Maffin referred readers to a study of youth in eleven countries conducted by Yahoo and OMD Worldwide.It found that "the Internet has surpassed radio as the preferred medium for music among youth in all [of those] countries" (Radio Currents, 2005, ¶ 6).Similar findings from a survey of 12 to 24 year old North Americans cited the tipping point to be September 2004, when more young people were listening to new media than to traditional radio."The same survey indicate [d] that the 25 to 59 and 35 to 64 age brackets are head [ed] in the same direction"